Lindo Creek COI...Retired detective questioned about missing information in coroner’s order

Lindo Creek COI…Retired detective questioned about missing information in coroner’s order

Mar 07, 2018 News

Retired detective Carl Jacobs was repeatedly questioned about omissions from a document that he prepared regarding the 2008 massacre of eight Lindo Creek miners, as the Commission of Inquiry’s preliminary hearings continued yesterday.
Jacobs, who was seconded to E&F Division (Linden and interior locations) at the time, conceded under questioning that information was absent from the Coroner’s Order that he prepared.
Shown the documents, he conceded that the name of the pathologist (Dr. Nehaul Singh) was scratched out from the document, and there was no indication that Dr. Singh had conducted the post-mortem examinations on the victims.
Detective Jacobs also admitted that relatives are usually informed when post-mortems on family members are being conducted. In the case of the Lindo Creek tragedy, family members were not informed about the post-mortems.
The burnt remains of Cecil Arokium, Dax Arokium, Horace Drakes, Bonny Harry, Lancelot Lee, Compton Speirs, Nigel Torres and Clifton Berry Wong, were found at Lindo Creek in June 2008.

Retired detective Carl Jacobs

Carmen Gittens

Testifying before CoI Chairman Justice Donald Trotman and COI attorney, Patrice Henry, Jacobs, who spent 23 years in E&F Division, recounted that on June 25, 2008, he was at Police Headquarters, Eve Leary, when the head of the E&F CID Division, Inspector Kitt, instructed him to prepare a coroner’s order for eight miners who were murdered at Lindo Creek.
He explained that coroner’s orders were done in the case of unnatural deaths, with a view to conducting post-mortems. The document, made out in triplicate, is signed by a Justice of the Peace, then taken to a pathologist.
The documents were signed (by “J.P. Tiwari at Maraj Building”), and the detective said he returned them to Inspector Kitt. They were then lodged at the Registry at CID Headquarters.
On being further questioned, Detective Jacobs said that the coroner’s order was prepared for Government Pathologist Dr. Nehaul Singh, but were not delivered to the pathologist. He was unable to explain why this was not done.
He also admitted that the name of the pathologist who was to conduct the post-mortems should be on the coroner’s order, but was not there. He also related that the words ‘gunshot injuries,’ rather than ‘murder’, were on the documents.
Questioned by Justice Trotman, he admitted that Dr. Nehaul Singh’s name had been ‘crossed out’ from the documents, and another name which he could not decipher, had been written. Jacobs stated that he did not write the name on the document.
He also conceded that there was no indication on the document to show that Dr Singh had conducted the post-mortem examinations.
The detective also said he had never attended any of the post-mortems and was not in contact with the relatives of the slain men. He could not say why they were not contacted.
VICTIMS’ RELATIVES
Also testifying were five relatives of the slain miners.
Natalie Mc Donald, the aunt of Horace James, recounted hearing of James’ death while visiting an aunt at the Georgetown Public Hospital.
“I heard the newspaper man say ‘get the news, get the news, Lindo Creek Massacre, eight men die.’”
McDonald said she later visited James’ mother, who immediately contacted a family member who has a dredge in the interior. The relative confirmed that her son had been killed.
And though the family held a memorial service, Mc Donald said that no police ranks or other officials attended.
When she took the stand, 80-year-old Carmen Gittens, Compton Speirs’ sister, commended the Government for mounting the COI. She said she last saw her younger brother in May, when he indicated that he was going to work in the interior.
As with other relatives, she also said that neither police nor government officials contacted the family. Most repeatedly said they were contacted by the media.
The COI preliminary hearings into their deaths continue on Friday.